East Magazine

It may come as a bit of a surprise, but it’s true: The early Americans who arrived here on the South Fork in the 1640s, despite being of Puritan stock, got fairly rowdy each December. Have you heard of wassailing? If you’ve ever been Christmas-caroling the word might ring a bell, from the most famous wassailing tune that remains among the seasonal canon, “Here We Come a-Wassailing.” It is pretty much all that’s left of a centuries-old, possibly millennium-old Yuletime tradition:

Chilled to the bone? We've slurped our way to a definitive list of the best takeout soups on the South Fork. Here's a full week's worth of loving spoonfuls

So, you've given up refined sugar for the good of your health. But... but what in the heck do you eat for a sweet treat when cookie-platter and eggnog season arrives?

There may be a word in Italian for "turkey," sure. (It's "tacchino.") But according to Joe Isidori of Arthur & Sons, roast turkey simply isn't the Italian-American way. When it comes to family gatherings for the winter holidays? Lasagna

Thousands gather to raise money for charity at three polar-bear plunges each winter. The numbers send a chill down your spine.

The holidays are right around the corner and naturally you want not just the perfect present, but one that's easy to gift-wrap, right? There's one natural answer: Books, of course! Here, an actual librarian's helpful hints on titles to please all the loved ones on your list.

The coast is clear, fellow sufferers from seasonal agoraphobia! For those of you who, like many of us, just want to be alone, winter is actually the very best time to enjoy so many of the pleasures of the South Fork.

This time of year, in one of the most beautiful but most expensive places on the planet, holiday gifting calls out for extra-special touches and money-saving methods. Here's how to wrap those presents with love from the East End.

Despite what the poultry pushers over at Butterball might have you believe, turkey isn’t a strictly universal Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner standard in various corners of America — and it definitely wasn’t always on the holiday table here in Bonac.

A wilderness? A suburban neighborhood? East Hampton's answer to the lost Jamestown settlement? Richard Whalen delves deep into the history and lore of the mysterious and beckoning Northwest Woods

A blues talent beyond his years, discovered as a youth here in 2013, gets ready for the big stage. Henry Koepp introduces you (again) to Casey Baron

Some of us, of literary bent, can’t walk past the South End Burying Ground — the cemetery, that is, by Town Pond, the one with the weeping willows — without being reminded of the famous closing lines of James Joyce’s short story The Dead:

Places and populations have personalities, too, and one of the deep-seated quirks of East Hampton is a predilection for pranks. We have a long history of (mostly) harmless mischief.

There’s nothing quite like the sound of the English-handbell choir during the Christmas season at the First Presbyterian Church in East Hampton, when gloved hands ring gleaming bells and chimes at exactly the right moment to create songs that evoke angels.

These are the hands of the community: everyday people who come together to make music — and magic and the holiday spirit.

Those who frequently drive along Noyac Road will be familiar with a pair of signs along the route: a chicken and an egg. They’re just around the bend from the marina at Wooley Pond and welcome people to North Sea Farms. It’s actually a rooster and not a chicken, hinting at the lighthearted farm humor at play.

“Did you notice the turkeys when you pulled in the driveway?” asks Richie King, who owns the farm with his wife, Robin.

Berton Roueché and his wife, Kay, lived on the north side of Amagansett in the early 1970s. Nearby was Quail Hill and its doyenne, Deborah Light Perry, who tended a covey of 36 cats — inspiring Roueché's pulp horror novel, Feral. David Rattray remembers a time, a place, and an incredible cast of characters from a less-tame past

Everyone knows what a turkey looks like, right? Sure. However, when tasked with illustrating a magazine story about the King family and their poultry farm in Southampton, Kym Fulmer, the Springs artist whose bright-eyed gobblers are on the cover of this edition of East, wanted to make sure she got it exactly right, so she paid a visit to North Sea Farms to look at the birds up close.

Hidden among hostas and ferns in the corner of a private garden — tucked behind an old house, away from the world — you find them: humble but magical backyard sheds. Nick Sambides Jr. talks to a lucky few East Enders who use their shacks for writing, for work, for art, for chickens, for contemplation, or for hardly anything at all.

It's a rough job but someone has to do it: East has taken one for the team and taste-tested the season's most delicious-sounding beverages in search of the ultimate, definitive cocktail for the summer of 2024. We found it at Townline BBQ: the strawberry mezcalita.

On a freezing December day in 1988, Frank Ganley pulled a Bonac school buddy — unconscious and sinking fast — from the icy underwater of Gardiner's Bay, after he fell overboard from a lobster boat called the Captain Kidd. Little did Ganley know that the near-death incident would drive a lifetime of ocean lifesaving.

The long, mischievous friendship of a pair of culinary legends, Craig Claiborne and Pierre Franey, lives on in the lore and legend of East Hampton. Irene Silverman recalls their escapades, recipes, and dinner-party glory.

Intimidated by the specialty mushrooms you see at the grocery or farmers market? Sarah Alford shares your curiosity and hesitation. Here's how to overcome your fears and get cooking.

This is based on Andrew Zimmerman’s recipe for Baltimore-style crab cakes, originally published in Food and Wine.

The word, technically, means language without meaning or ideas that are unintelligible. Around here, nonsense is the very Hamptons collision of small-town sensibilities and V.I.P. egotism. J Brooke has been taking notes on Hamptons pettiness — the everyday absurdity of life on the South Fork — and lived to tell the tale.

Remembering Allan Weisbecker: longboard surfer, author, drug smuggler, Montauk legend.

What's an "inversion table"? What's the deal with that "sound bath" business? Carissa Katz, Jason Nower, and Christine Sampson tried out some trendy wellness treatments to give you, the reader, an honest opinion.

Who isn’t instantly transported back to childhood when they see a sand castle? Some of the most epic creations can be seen every summer at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett, where the Clamshell Foundation — for going on 33 years now — hosts an annual contest that pits friend against friend for beachy bragging rights in support of charitable causes.

The indie film scene here has become a vibrant playground for emerging talents pushing the boundaries of independent filmmaking.

Eiji Shiga and Colin Lillie, best friends for 35 years and bartenders for 25 of them at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, have quite the friendship origin story.

Look down. “Geodetic Survey” markers have triangulated the coastal landscape since the Thomas Jefferson administration.